PLEASANT HILL / Cars squeezed out of lot near BART

Harriet Chang

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, June 5, 2004

Commuters at the Pleasant Hill BART station will have a tougher time finding parking spaces Monday morning after Contra Costa County blocks off a 582-space temporary parking lot this weekend to begin building a long-awaited green space.

Riders have been using the temporary lot for years under a special lease agreement with the Contra Costa County Redevelopment Agency while plans were in the works to convert the land next to the Iron Horse Trail, a popular walking and bicycling path.

The project is finally getting under way, which means that the lot will be blocked off today.

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BART hopes to ease the parking pinch by opening a temporary parking lot on Las Juntas Way at Del Hombre that would accommodate 187 cars. The agency also restriped the garage at the Pleasant Hill BART station last summer to create 65 more spaces.

BART spokesman Linton Johnson said the transit agency also will offer commuters a month-free pass in the reserved parking spaces at all stations between Pittsburg and Orinda, including Pleasant Hill, where reserved spots now cost $42 a month.

Even though the temporary lot next to the Iron Horse Trail is not a BART project, Johnson said the agency is trying to accommodate its customers. "We're trying to bring it up to the 582-space lot," he said. "But clearly we can't."